Parlor Talk: The Rise Of Memes

Markus Winkler

The world before memes was more desolate and flippant but now with the advent of memes we can compactly express irony is a way worth championing. Encapsulating sentiments in compact packages that can percolate the web often forms trendsetting ideas that translate into levity or irony and leverage sentimentalism to influence people in one direction or another or just bemuse them with a welcome distraction. Some of the most popular memes have quite the traction and staying power that lasts for seemingly intensive periods of replication while other memes fade away. In a way, the signature of the zeitgeist is defined by the quality and quantity of the memes that define it and can be used as signposts for nostalgic reckoning with the past while anticipating the future deftly. Memes began in the early 2000s but it wasn’t catalyzed until the advent of Facebook’s ubiquity in 2010 or so when it became common currency to express the communicable humor of a savory roast without exerting much effort other than by circulating things that already exist. In the beginning, there was great variegation of memes but now that seems reined in by the centripetal force of the most common ones permuted in ways that delight new audiences based on context.

We should be cooperative with meme culture rather than fight it because it can be used to sway opinions on many issues in a manner that is light-hearted rather than sinister or importunate. The process of the invention is key to sustaining the brisk pace of memeing which has sadly been outmoded in Europe but exists as the ballast for the rest of the world. It is a useful social gambit to share clever memes even if you didn’t create them because it provides avenues of creative burlesque that defy parochial boundaries and exert a reach that is far beyond what someone might anticipate. My advice is to create new memes at a faster rate than briskly anticipate and tap on the controversies or foofaraws of the day in an adaptive manner that variegates meme culture even more so we witness a flourishing of comedic creativity borne of memes. The zany and whimsical temperaments of creativity etched with flippant force brings zest into the comedic sphere that might be more irreverent than permitted on the talk show circuit or even among other venues of prominence. We should proclaim the social utility of this movement rather than balking at it because even among the bastions that claim memes threaten prejudice in my opinion they are just frivolous fun that multiplies felicity and humor throughout the internet.

Memes already hit their heyday years ago but to prolong their influence would be wise because a confluence of zany duplicity and crafty beguilement of skullduggery inevitably leads to a harvest of rejoinders prepared and primed for any occasion to challenge the limits of creativity and Photoshop to render new ideas communicable. Memes represent the expansive nature of pop culture to ingeminate the world with double-takes and inside jokes that circumduct around the media content, we curate and promote a current perspective on moot affairs relating to the cultural climate rather than just being worthless barnacles to the times. The efficacy of the meme is embedded in the subtext of the source material which often relies on choosing ironic metaphors encapsulated in the design of memes themselves to enable the versatility of ingenuity to create a cackle or a convulsion. We should relish the raillery of our times by fueling the desire to variegate memes beyond their original constructions to bequeath new designs that don’t falter because they are hackneyed. This requires enlisting and recruiting people to design new meme formats that catch on and have lasting value rather than the dross of the temporary.

Without memes, social media would be more of a vapid affair but because of them, we find great beatitude in shared humor, and in some ways, it erects culture around it to be facetious and pliable rather than stern and sober with austerity. We should definitely herald memes as an art form that might be temporary according to the whims of any given zeitgeist but worthy of the same stature as paintings in museums because even though many are crass and crude in construction they are societal linchpins that anchor the age. Sometimes laziness and inertia prevent us from making idiosyncratic memes but those tirelessly at work doing that job deserve our praise rather than our condemnation especially for politically provocative memes that change cultural attitudes or chide hypocrisies on both the left and the right. We are flooded by memes but that avalanche doesn’t mean we should stop creating just because others already have it is an open excuse to balk at the hygiene that restrained puritans and create irreverence for the totems that solidify culture around itself while throwing caution to the wind. Ultimately, memes are a welcome relief from the otherwise mundane responsibilities we are tasked with on a day-to-day basis and they form the cultural bedrock of the gossamer creations that we often navigate with leisure because they are there rather than in their notorious absence. By examining the net yield of memes you can appreciate and value the culture that you live in and understand its nuances which is why cultural anthropologists should be tasked with studying the life cycle and popularity of given formats of memes and the different content that emblazons them. Even the garbology of memeing is central because many obscure memes often have a particular flair worthy of celebration but by searching through the endless array of memes is a fruitful endeavor for further scholastic inquiry that I vehemently encourage.